Kristen Burrus Therapist and Coach

09/25/2026

People ask me how long grief takes. I never have a good answer, because the question has a wrong idea inside it.

Grief isn't something to get over. It's not a project with a finish line, and you haven't failed at it because it's been two years and a song still takes you out.

The goal was never to stop feeling it. The goal is to find a way to carry it that still lets you live — where you can miss someone and also make plans, laugh at something, want things again. Those aren't in competition. Nobody is being betrayed.

If it's stopped you living — that's different, and that's worth bringing to a therapist. Not because grief is a problem, but because you don't have to carry it on your own.

Send this to someone who keeps being asked why they're not over it yet.

Complicated Grief is a worksheet for the kind that doesn't fit the word. kristenburrus.com/shop, or the link in my bio.

— Kristen, LCMFT / LMAC · Overland Park, KS

09/22/2026

09/22/2026

Knowing you're allowed to say no is not the same as being able to do it.

That's the gap people come in embarrassed about. They can explain boundaries perfectly. They've read the book. And then their mother calls and the whole thing goes out the window, and they decide that means something is wrong with them.

It doesn't. Somewhere back there, keeping everyone else happy was how you stayed safe. That worked. Your nervous system filed it under things that keep me alive, and it has been running that file ever since.

So when you go to say no, you are not arguing with a bad habit. You're arguing with a survival strategy that has a much longer track record than your new information does.

Which is why this gets easier with practice rather than with insight.

Save this one. It's easier to read on a calm day than on the day your mother calls.

The Walls You Hold Up is the worksheet version — boundaries, and what to do when holding one feels dangerous. kristenburrus.com/shop, or the link in my bio.

— Kristen, LCMFT / LMAC · Overland Park, KS

09/19/2026

People tell me dating apps have made them worse at dating. What they usually mean is that they have stopped being able to hear themselves over the noise.

There are two ways it goes wrong, and they are opposites. For some people the problem is that nothing comes back — effort that goes unanswered, and one promising match starting to carry far more weight than it can hold. For others it is a full inbox that still leaves them discouraged, conversations blurring together, the quiet exhaustion of sorting.

Different pressure, same result. You start getting better at being chosen, and lose track of the fact that you are also choosing.

So the guide comes in two editions, because those two experiences genuinely need different pages. Everything else in them is the same: work out what you actually want before you open the app, read patterns rather than single moments, and stay someone you recognize while you are doing it.

📌 Dating Without Losing Yourself — in two editions, Too Much Choice and Not Enough:
kristenburrus.com/shop

— Kristen, LCMFT / LMAC · Overland Park, KS

09/16/2026

Anger is never the first feeling.

When someone tells me they're angry, I ask what's underneath it. And they say — it just makes me so mad. Okay. But anger is a secondary emotion. It arrives on top of something else, and almost always that something is fear, or loss.

So what were you afraid of in that moment? Or what did it feel like you were losing?

"I'm angry that the people on the road are so stupid." But really what's under there is: I'm afraid I'm going to be late.

Work backwards from the anger and you find the thing that actually needs working on.

📌 What's Underneath the Anger — a worksheet that walks you back to it:
kristenburrus.com/shop — or tap the link in my bio.

— Kristen, LCMFT / LMAC · Overland Park, KS

09/14/2026

Grief isn't only about death.

A job. A pet. A divorce. A relationship. And they don't all look the same.

Sometimes we grieve people who are still alive — a parent who wasn't the kind of parent you needed them to be. Not because they're bad people. Because they just weren't there in the way you needed.

That's not their fault. And it's still yours to come back from — back to who you need to be, regardless of what's happened in your past.

People feel silly calling anything but death grief. But grief just means you're sad that something has passed, or is gone, and is no longer available to you.

📌 Complicated Grief — a worksheet for the kind that doesn't fit the word:
kristenburrus.com/shop

— Kristen, LCMFT / LMAC · Overland Park, KS

08/17/2026

I’m excited to introduce my friend’s new business, Countryside Bookkeeping and Tax! They offer dependable bookkeeping and tax preparation services for new and existing businesses.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1H8o52RpfX/

Bookkeeping & tax services for small to medium businesses. Financials, done accurately, on time.